Institute of Art Design + Technology
Dún Laoghaire

Eoghan Fitzmaurice 

 
Project Description

This project set out to explore the composition and recording of music for a 5.1 surround sound system. Three musical compositions have been created for this spatial audio setup. These were used to experiment with multichannel recording techniques and compare them to remixing content for 5.1. The process of composing and recording this way is evaluated within this thesis. The benefits and disadvantages of it are presented in this thesis.



Thesis Title

This project set out to explore the composition and recording of music for a 5.1 surround sound system. Three musical compositions have been created for this spatial audio setup. These were used to experiment with multichannel recording techniques and compare them to remixing content for 5.1. The process of composing and recording this way is evaluated within this thesis. The benefits and disadvantages of it are presented in this thesis. During some recording sessions it was possible to record while monitoring in 5.1 this allowed for real time feedback on how well these multi-channel recording techniques were working. This project shows that while making music for 5.1 might not be the most consumer friendly means of creating music and it does present many benefits and also disadvantages. One of the main benefit of making music with 5.1 is the experience during recording sessions for the composers and musicians and their sound engineers and producers getting to hear the music in this way especially if the listeners have not used 5.1 before.